At least 1.2 million young undocumented immigrants will be able to apply for a temporary stay of deportation and a work permit beginning today.

This is the enactment of a policy President Obama announced back in June and it applies to younger [undocumented] immigrants with no criminal history who were brought to the country as children.

At the time, President Obama said this new policy was simply the "the right thing to do," but that it also helped Immigration and Customs Enforcement focus on deporting criminals. His opponents said that the president had overstepped his authority by issuing the new policy; they said he had enacted his own so-called DREAM Act without the approval of Congress.

On August 1st, the New York Times published a debate "Is getting on the 'Undocubus' a good idea?Should illegal immigrants to the United States be encouraged to come out about their status?"

Below is our response:

As undocumented immigrants we face risks every day. We wake up every morning wondering whether their loved ones will return home. While many of us pay taxes, we don’t have access to work, education or healthcare. We have few effective avenues to participate in the democratic process and the creation of the laws that frame our lives.

This small group has already won an important victory, a victory against fear. At the cramped offices of Puente Arizona, the Phoenix organization behind the “UndocuBus,” volunteers kept busy last week updating calendars and working phone banks. They made papier-mâché masks and silk-screen posters, and decorated plastic buckets for drumming. There was packing to be done, a bus to be painted. Saturday was the day for a march, Sunday will be for the gathering in a city park, for eating, singing and saying goodbyes. After that, the bus will roll.

They hope to expand on the activist role carved out by immigrants who were brought to the country as children, many of whom would be shielded from deportation under a policy enacted last month by the Obama administration. (Many of the riders on the bus are the parents of young people whose protests eventually spurred the administration’s action.)

“I’m running this risk because I want us to be respected, I want us to be recognized as the human beings that we are,” Maria Cruz Ramirez said at the party, where she sat before a makeshift stage, surrounded by other bus riders.